AL_A announces that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has granted planning permission for the V&A Exhibition Road development to create a new gallery, public courtyard and entrance into the museum from Exhibition Road. AL_A’s design aims to unlock the potential to bring in audiences to the V&A by proposing a relationship between museum and street that does not exist today.

The scheme creates a physical permeability with the formation of a new public space, a courtyard, which will provide not only an additional entry point, but has the potential to change the visitor journey through the museum and to allow them to discover more of the collections. An outdoor room bounded on all four sides by architecturally-significant façades, it will create a place to pick up a coffee or have a drink after work, a space for major installations and events, but above all a space for appropriation by visitors.

The design celebrates the descent to the new gallery as an important part of the visitor’s journey, woven into the fabric of the museum and framing unique views of the museum’s fine façades. Visitors will be drawn to the gallery below by natural light, lessening until reaching the bottom where a dramatic pool of daylight appears magically underground. Descent and ascent have been designed with a specific focus on the manipulation of light and interplay between new and old.

The gallery will be a new home for a full programme of the V&A’s world-class exhibitions. A folded plate ceiling will span 30 metres and soar over the visitor despite being underground. Its design was inspired by the neo-Gothic and neo-Classic museological tradition of ornate ceilings, continuing the didactic role in promoting the art and craft of manufacture.

The structural form and geometry of the gallery ceiling seeps through to the pattern of the courtyard above, giving a perspective of the exhibition space below. The visitor will be aware of the gallery directly beneath their feet. In turn, the structural solution of the ceilings generates the paving pattern of the courtyard.

Amanda Levete, Principal of AL_A said: “This is a defining project for AL_A. We’re reimagining the dialogue between the V&A and Exhibition Road and in doing so, creating a new public space in the cultural and learning heart of London. It’s made particularly special by the V&A collections having inspired so much of our work.”

Work on site will commence in 2012 with proposed completion by the end of 2015, opening in 2016.

Comments

I would have thought the V&A is already big enough. Has to be one of the most off-putting museums in London.

bbo

I'm hard-pressed to defend Libeskind's architecture - but at least it understood the proud, bold and confidence of the Victorians who founded this institution. This project is a limp, shapy, random, and not in the slightest bit confident. . . . too bad it can't be buried any deeper!!

The only thing Libeskind understands is his own ego. His appalling additions to historical buildings (Toronto, Dresden, et al), underscore his inabilitry to understand the first thing about Victorian, Classical or any other period of architecture. I would hire an blind ape with a pencil before I would choose to work with Libeskind.

It's a crying shame none of the shortlisted projects allow for the lovely pool they have now. Currently, one could sit in the courtyard (weather permitting) and contemplate the lovely decorative internal facade from every direction, while children splash about the pool. I rank that experience right next to viewing the Plaster Courts as highlights of the museum. All these shortlisted solutions have no real interest for public use of the space.

jbh

That's a different courtyard in the centre of the building you're talking about there. This proposal is sited on Exhibition Road.

Ah! so it is... thanks. Yay! Still they could have suggested a courtyard that is a little more friendly for "public appropriation".

Hallie

When I think of the visual havoc that Daniel Libeskind's "architecture" has wreaked on Toronto, Denver, Dresden and Dublin (and other cities), I'm doubly relieved that his brand of garbage was shot down for this V&A site. Keep him out of Britain!